Chapter XIX Stung!
Rosalind not only wired to Mr. Davidson but, as an afterthought, she sent a message to Hastings & Hatch. The answer to the latter came promptly the following forenoon.
It did not serve to restore her equanimity. It described William Kissam Kellogg minutely, as Rosalind had requested, and the description was a photographic likeness of the young man who had confessed to Polly that he was no such person.
“Nothing to do but wait for Mr. Davidson,” said Rosalind.
She spent some of the time, when it was not devoted to standing watch upon the stranger, in writing. After the call of the customs agents at Witherbee’s Island, Rosalind had begun the preparation of a memorandum. It had already reached a length of several pages; there were daily additions. Also, there were classifications, thus:
What I Really Did.
What They Think I Did.
What I Know about Certain Things and Persons.
What I Must Find Out About Them.
What Must Never Be Found Out About Me.
Things That I Have Said (for reference in
connection with other things I may have to say before
this is over)
Suspicions That I Have.
Under the last head there was much writing, for Rosalind’s mind was as crowded with suspicions as that of a crowned head is thronged with troubles. It was not strange, of course, that a large part of the memorandum dealt with the boatman. At every turn and corner of it his name and his deeds intruded.
But there were some things that Rosalind, even in the privacy of her diary, would not suffer herself to commit to plain English. These were represented by a cipher code, the key to which lay only in her memory.
For instance, a Maltese cross represented her experience in the tree; a star the shower-bath that came from the boatman’s bucket, an asterisk the dance at the hotel where she found herself in the arms of Sam. All this was by way of mitigating the disaster that would befall if her memorandum chanced to come to the eyes of another.
The task of keeping watch upon the strange young man was more tedious than difficult. Most of the time he sat on the porch, staring at the lawn with inconsolable eyes. He made not the slightest attempt to escape; rather, he appeared to be in a sort of stupor. Polly felt sorry for him; Rosalind had only contempt.
A day passed thus and a second began with the young man still sitting and staring. Even Mrs. Witherbee granted that he was an unhappy acquisition, while everybody was unanimous in agreeing that work had produced an appalling effect upon Kellogg.
It was mid-morning when Rosalind, unable longer to endure the sight—she classified him as a vegetable—left Polly on guard and betook herself to the river. One thing she wanted was her bracelet. Of the boatman she had seen nothing; he had made no effort to restore her property.
With an intent that was really subconscious, she rowed one of the light skiffs in the direction of his island. There was also something mechanical rather than deliberate in the act of her landing there, making fast her boat, and ascending the path that led to his shack. Only the sound of voices awakened her from a day-dream.
She halted and listened. One of the voices was unmistakably that of Sam. The other, subdued and indifferent in tone, she finally identified as that of Mr. Morton.
Now all of her senses were alert and tingling. Perhaps it was a chance meeting; perhaps a plot; perhaps—
But it might be any one of so many things that it was not worth while to speculate. It was entirely a matter for observation.
Rosalind advanced cautiously, taking care that no stick snapped or stone rolled underfoot, and keeping herself screened behind the small trees and bushes that sheltered the path. Presently she sighted them. The spectacle was one that surprised her.
Sam and the Englishman were seated on the ground, facing each other. Between them lay a folded blanket. The boatman was shuffling a pack of cards.
“What I can’t make out,” Sam was saying, “is the luck of it—you walking right into my parlor, just as the fly went calling on the spider, and without an invitation at that. I’d been trying to think up a scheme to get you here, and, by jingo! you save me the trouble.”
“Um—ah—just rowing about a bit, you know. Exercise and that sort of thing. Saw your island, and came ashore to have a look.”
“And you didn’t know it was my hangout, eh?”
The boatman was watching the Englishman closely.
“‘Pon my word, no! Awfully sorry I’ve intruded.”
“Intruded! Man alive, you’re as welcome as good news! Sit still; you positively mustn’t be going yet. I insist. I hear you’re something of a card-player. That’s why— Confound that pack! My fingers are like thumbs lately.”
The boatman gathered up the scattered pack and resumed his shuffling.
“You are about to make the acquaintance,” he said, “of that certain branch of the great American sport known as freeze-out. You have ten chips; I have ten. Your chips are worth a thousand each; you’ll have to take my word for it that mine are worth the same. The limit is anything you have in sight.”
Morton yawned.
“Really,” he drawled, “I’m not interested, you know.”
“You will be,” the boatman reassured him. “It’s going to be highly interesting. Will you cut?”
“Rather, I think I’ll say good day,” and Morton made as if to rise.
Then Rosalind noticed that a pistol lay at the boatman’s side and that his hand sought it. Morton observed the movement, too, for with a bored sigh he settled back on his crossed legs.
“I’ll cut,” he said.
The boatman dealt and picked up his hand. For a few seconds his antagonist seemed not to know the purpose of the five cards that lay, face downward, before him; then he lifted them languidly.
“I say,” he yawned, “is a pair any good in this game?”
“Not too good,” answered the boatman cheerfully. “How many?”
Morton took three, while Sam contented himself with one.
The Englishman tossed a chip into the center of the blanket, the boatman two.
“Er—what should I do now?” inquired the prisoner listlessly.
“Quit, call, or raise—anything you please.”
“To call is—er—to equal the amount of your stake?”
“You’ve got the idea.”
Morton added a chip to the pot and laid a pair of eights on the blanket. The boatman displayed tens up and nonchalantly raked four chips toward himself.
“Your deal,” he said, tossing the cards across.
Rosalind frowned as she stared at the Englishman.
“I am afraid he is a fool, after all,” she thought. “Why didn’t he—”
The Englishman was dealing abstractedly. He had to be reminded to look at his own hand.
Sam drew three cards, Morton three. This time three of the Englishman’s chips crossed the blanket to the other side. He showed not even a pair.
“It’s plain robbery,” whispered Rosalind to herself. “The man doesn’t know the first thing about poker. Can they really be serious?”
A second look at the boatman’s pistol reminded her that they probably were.
For five minutes the game progressed. Twice, by an accident of fate, the Englishman gathered the pot, but for the most part his own pile was receding chip by chip. Even in his winning moments he seemed bored almost to the point of somnolence. The boatman alternately grinned and whistled.
“I’ll just tap you for what you’ve got,” Sam said after examining his final draw. “Two checks, I believe.”
“This is a deuced stupid game, you know,” remarked Morton as he pushed the last of his stack to the center.
“Doesn’t strike you quite so favorably as bridge, eh?”
“Rather—not.”
“Do you happen to have anything as good as three of a kind?”
Morton looked down at his cards as if he had just discovered them.
“Er—what would you make of them?” he asked, displaying them.
Rosalind gasped. She could see the hand from where she stood. It contained not even a pair!
“I’d make a resolution to quit,” advised the boatman as he took the last of the chips. “This freezes you.”
“Can’t say I think much of your American game,” and Morton yawned again prodigiously. “Ah—how much?”
“You’ve lost ten thousand, my friend.”
“Really, now?”
“Honest and truly.”
The boatman’s hand crept toward his revolver. With a listless shrug Morton began feeling in an inner pocket. Presently he drew forth a wallet.
“The idiot!” fumed Rosalind. “He’s been swindled!”
A moment’s search within the folds of the leather resulted in the appearance of an oblong slip of paper. Glancing casually at it, Morton handed it to the boatman. The latter examined it closely, then looked up with a smile.
“I—er—think you’ll find it good,” drawled Morton.
“I’ll take a chance,” said Sam as he thrust the paper into the pocket of his shirt. “Mighty nice of you to carry this around with you. But let me give you a chunk of advice. Next time you trim a guy at bridge, either keep your mouth shut about it or don’t carry the stuff around with you. You are liable to tempt some of us poker kings.”
“Ah—thanks, by Jove! Not a bad idea, that. You’ll not be wanting me now, I take it?”
“School’s out.”
The boatman rose to his feet.
The placidity of Morton was undisturbed as he stood and flecked a few patches of dust from his trousers.
“I’ll be going, if you don’t mind,” he remarked. “My boat’s at the other end of the island.”
Although the affair was none of hers, Rosalind found herself angry. If there was one thing that annoyed her beyond endurance, it was sheer stupidity. She believed she had just witnessed the apotheosis of it.
Yet something struck her oddly as the Englishman turned and walked away. She was quite sure that she heard him chuckle. The boatman must have heard the same thing, for he stared after Morton curiously.
“A bad check, I’ll wager,” whispered Rosalind to herself. “But where was the sense in the whole affair, anyhow? Never mind; it’s not my business. But I want my bracelet.”
She stepped from her concealment, and an instant later the boatman turned at the sound of her footsteps.
“Hello!” he said cordially. “You just missed the performance.”
“My bracelet, please,” was Rosalind’s only remark.
“Why, I’d clean forgotten it, ma’am.”
“You haven’t—lost it?”
“No fear; it’s safe.”
He turned and entered the cabin, appearing a moment later with the golden circlet lying in his palm. Rosalind seized it with more joy than dignity. The touch of it, as she snapped it about her arm, was exhilarating. Her eyes shone with the light of triumph.
The boatman watched the expressive pantomime with evident approval.
“You’re rather lucky to get it, in a way,” he said. “I’ve just been taking a chance at freeze-out, and if I’d lost I guess it would have been up to me to fork over the bracelet as part payment.”
Rosalind made no pretense of being startled at the idea. She knew he was capable of no such infamy, no matter what he might be.
“I saw what happened,” she remarked.
“Oh, did you?”
“I saw you steal ten thousand dollars.”
The boatman studied her quizzically.
“And never made a move to stop me,” he commented.
She winced, but decided to ignore the implication.
“I didn’t steal it, ma’am,” he added. “Poker’s a perfectly fair game. I didn’t stack the cards; I didn’t shove a cold deck at him.”
“Fair! When he didn’t know the first principles of it?”
“He certainly didn’t play as if he did,” admitted Sam. “But if he didn’t know poker, he had no business to sit in the game.”
“Not with a gun at his head?”
“Hum! I’d forgotten the gun. I suppose that did have something to do with it. It wasn’t loaded, though.”
“It was no better than stealing. It was stealing.”
“Funny thing about it,” mused the boatman, as if he did not hear her, “but he didn’t seem to care much, one way or the other. Why, he yawned in my face, ma’am.”
The creature baffled her completely.
“Have you no compunctions whatever about the manner in which you took his money?” she asked curiously.
“Compunctions—about him? I’m afraid not. He stole it in the first place, didn’t he?”
“He won it—fairly!” exclaimed Rosalind. “You knew he had it, and you’ve been plotting and planning to get it for days and days.”
“Maybe,” he admitted.
“I hope the check he gave you is bad,” she added viciously.
“That would be a horse on me; wouldn’t it, ma’am? But that’s a chance that folks like you and me have to run. Still, I heard he stole it, or what amounts to the same thing.”
“I tell you he didn’t!”
“You seem mighty sure about that. How do you know, ma’am?”
“Because Mr. Kellogg told me so.”
“Kellogg?”
“Yes; he’s here.”
The boatman eyed her for several seconds.
“He is staying at Mr. Witherbee’s,” she added.
Of course, Rosalind knew that this was a fib; but somebody who called himself Kellogg was staying there, at any rate, and she saw no need of explaining to Sam.
“So Kellogg’s here, is he?” he remarked. “I suppose he came back to have another try at the Englishman. That’ll be hard luck for Kellogg, because I think his lordship is about cleaned, ma’am.”
“He came for no such purpose,” declared Rosalind, half wondering why she was hastening to the defense of an impostor. “Mr. Kellogg has—reformed.”
“Reformed? Was he— Hum! Well—was he one of us?”
Rosalind’s cheeks flamed.
“He was a good-for-nothing idle gambler!” she explained.
“Oh!” said the boatman in a relieved tone. “He’s turned over a new leaf, eh?”
“He’s very much engrossed in his new work.
“What’s he doing here, then?”
“His uncle sent for him.”
Again the boatman appeared to reflect.
“What for?” he asked.
“To look after his island while he is away. Mr. Davidson has gone to Denver. And Mr. Kellogg is going to try to put an end to all these burglaries. So there’s a warning for you.”
He pondered the warning and wrinkled his forehead.
“Customs officers still hanging around?” he asked.
“I am told they are.”
“And that Canadian spy-chaser—is he still on the job?”
“I saw the launch again yesterday.”
“Is Davidson’s police patrol cruising, too?”
“Of course. And they’ve put on another boat.”
Rosalind noted with satisfaction that he was showing traces of worriment.
“I expect that’s going to make things pretty warm,” he observed.
“Dangerous!” she supplemented.
“You’d advise flitting, then, ma’am?”
“Beyond all question. And—well, it’s only because of the bracelet that I give you this warning.”
“It’s certainly kind of you—mighty kind.”
Rosalind felt that the sword no longer dangled over her head by a single hair.
“You’re a good, square pal to tip me off,” he went on. “I guess you’re dead right about it. The jig’s up for us.
“Yes, ma’am. We’d better blow.”
“We!”
“We’ll be starting in a few minutes. It never pays to stick around after the last hand’s played.”
Rosalind was tongue-tied with astonishment.